HE FACES up to 150 years in jail.
But after spending just one night behind bars, the world's biggest financial fraudster Bernard Madoff is begging to be freed.
The New York Post reported that the 70-year-old, who admitted on Thursday to running a US$65 billion ($108 billion) Ponzi scam, had pleaded with the court to let him loose until he is sentenced on 16 Jun.
Madoff was then ordered to be locked up at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre until his sentencing.
But one day later, his lawyers filed an appeal to the court, arguing that Madoff should be freed as he did not flee after his arrest, even though he knew he would likely die in prison.
His lawyers likened him to some of the biggest white-collar criminals of all time - such as WorldCom's Bernard Ebbers and Enron's Kenneth Lay - who remained free following their convictions.
Since he gave himself up to the authorities in December, Madoff was allowed out on US$10m bail and was placed under house arrest in his swanky US$7m Upper East Side penthouse.
As part of the arrangement, Madoff's wife, Ruth, agreed to pay US$140,000 a month for security monitoring.
That, coupled with the near constant presence of media outside the apartment, makes it impossible for Madoff to disappear, his lawyers argued.
But in the meantime, he would just have to get used to his tiny 2.2m by 2.4m jail cell - about the size of a walk-in closet - and swallow less humble meals than his prime ribs and cognac.
Madoff, whose prisoner number is 61727-054, spent his first night in prison in isolation in a special housing unit, known as 'the box'.
He ate a microwaved meal of frozen chicken patties and canned string beans that were delivered to his cell in a styrofoam container.
A woman who visited another inmate at the lower-Manhattan jail on Friday said: 'Think of the worst school lunch you ever had. The food that they give is like garbage.'
As one veteran defence lawyer, who has had several clients locked up in the correctional centre which also houses terrorists and reputed mobsters, put it: 'Le Cirque it ain't.'
While he is in 'the box', Madoff's relatives won't even be allowed to put money into a commissary account, which would allow him to supplement the meagre fare with chips or candy bars.
